


Take This Cup from Me

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-16
Updated: 2006-05-16
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>S5. Madness is the gift that has been given to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take This Cup from Me

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

In the solitude of his apartment he had nothing but time, a stark contrast to the perpetual merry-go-round of the office. Nothing but freedom to let his mind wander, time to pick at the lint forming between the cracks of his frazzled brain.

No wonder his workdays seemed to extend further and further into the night.

He moved about stiff, exact, economy of movement honed down to neat vectors and sharp angles. The kettle was on and the tea measured while he watched; his hands working far, far away and if he concentrated enough maybe he might reach them.

Breaking was such an overused metaphor for failure. He wasn't broken; rather, there were splinters wedged between the wheels and the cogs ran backwards, and you couldn't say it was broken if it was still running.

While he turned this problem around and inside out, his hands finished their job. The tea was ready by the time he reached his conclusion. It was really only a working hypothesis, and he'd need a whole lot of tea and lint and cracks to fall into before he'd have an actual working theory.

There it was again, that word. Work, function. Equations, parallels, cross references in long dead languages that belonged right where he was, or vice versa. Did it really matter which group was overlapping as long as there was a cross-section?

He walked over to the bathroom, washing his face from the daily grime. Nothing to see there, move on. The pleasant part of corporate life was never having to wash concrete demon slime and pus away, but the infinitely small gray particles clinging to every hair and burrowing into his pores weren't that much better. Slime he knew when he'd beaten; these layers of endless _gray_ he had to rub raw, soap it up and scratch the stubble he didn't dare to shave off, not just yet when he could imagine the dust obscured under, wouldn't have to see it in case it wasn't all in his head. Was his face more ashen now? Did they notice?

No, of course they didn't. He was as invisible as the grime he tried to wash; translucent, just an obstacle in the way of photons flashing through him as the inconsequential lump of molecules he was. They looked at him, but only bent on their way through. He wasn't enough to reflect.

He stared at the mirror, skin tingling with the heat of the water and the abrasion he'd caused. He tilted his head, as if asking something but never receiving an answer.

He walked away after taking down the whole mirror. No use for the useless, after all.

And when he returned to the tea neatly laid out on the living room table it was tepid and bland, but the moon shone in with cold brightness and it fit, strangely enough, so well he turned the lights off and bathed in its muted rays and enjoyed his cup of mediocrity with it.

Today, Angel had looked at him, and he'd seen something. Not enough to leave any impression, of course, but maybe one tiny beam had reflected back and he didn't know whether he wanted to turn solid or wish it was only a statistical anomaly.

Fred had once seen him. It never turned out well.


End file.
